Guidelines NVC-EN -UT2

Grundtvig Learning Partnership “Empathy and Art of Life. Social Competencies through Non-‐violent Communication”

http://www.nvcproject.eu

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This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Guidelines on Non-‐violent Communication

Idea, Method, Exercises



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Table of Contents I. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 3

II. Non violent communication and gender issues ............................................................... 8

III. Non violent communication in families. ........................................................................ 12 IV. Non-‐violent communication guidelines about Empathic Communication in Internet ............................................................................................................................................ 18

V. Intergenerational Non-‐violent Communication ............................................................ 23 VI. Non-‐violent communication at workplace .................................................................... 31



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I. Introduction by Sophia Bickhardt , Project coordinator on behalf of Lila Offensive e.V. / Frauenkreise Berlin The philosophy and method of Non-‐violent Communication (NVC) developed by Marshall B. Rosenberg invite you leaving familiar, but arduous ways of human communication and to open yourself towards new worlds. New worlds regarding a more lively relationship to one's own as well as to others. A promise of salvation? Yes and no. NVC provokes hope at least. Why? What other kind of communication quality is alive if people follow the non-‐violence approach of M. Rosenberg? What means non-‐violent? In other words: Why is it necessary to look for other ways (“method”) of communication? When would communication is regarded as being violent – in relationships between couples, in familiy, at work / jobcenter, through lobby groups, in NGOs, at school, between people of different political opinions, within the state's institutions? How can destructivity through personal relationships as well by socioeconomic and political structures be reduced? How can connection between people raise which is authentically and brings feelings and needs into reality? What triggered Marshall B. Rosenberg to turn to the path of NVC? He mentioned three deeply impressive experiences in an interview in 2000: His family moved from the South of the United States to Detroit in 1943. Whilst racial segregation was in common in the South lived in the Northern industrial city people of different colours in one residential area. “It was a tinderbox just ready to explode.” (Rosenberg, Interview) Rosenberg was facing race

riots already when he was a child. Moreover, as member of a Jewish family he was a victim of physical violence and humiliations.

Giraffes symbolise NVC Photo: Zoo in Paris



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During that time he got to know two kinds of smile: One kind of the observers who enjoyed watching Rosenberg's suffering when he was beaten. Completely different was the smile of his uncle who took care on his grandmother every evening – the smile of somebody “who get joy out of serving in some way” (Rosenberg, interview). During his studies at graduate school he considered that psychology should not only focus on individuals but also on social structures. It were quite “dangerous” to mean that suffering is a matter of an individual, showing that something is wrong with people. He

therefore included methods in the trainings of psychologists “... to liberate ourselves from what we have internalized from these oppressive structures, but that also show us how we can now transform domination structures in to life serving structures.” (Rosenberg, interview) Non-‐violent Communication focus on the concrete interaction between people and takes a change of the society into account. What about the basic assumptions of Non-‐violent Communication? The NVC trainer Nayoma de Haen has created a “big picture” during our transnational project meeting in Berlin:



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With simple words, communication happens as a stimulus and a reaction. The direction of the exchange, the content and the way how people interact, can be 'directed' when awareness comes in. People make a choice. They may decide themselves towards empathy, which could be “translated” as will to comprehend the other with regard to her/his feelings and needs. Empathy refers to one's own and to the other. It is an attitude, an intention. Without this inner mindset may the steps towards non-‐violent communication be formally right but not create a deeper connection. The question how we can practise empathy as self-‐empathy and empathy for others leads to four components proposed by Marshall Rosenberg:

- Observation: I refer to a concrete situation. I try to describe without mixing in any evaluation, judge-‐ment or diagnosis. Observing without interpreting is an art...

- What do I feel about what I am observing? Am I sad, angry, hap-‐py? For some people it is unusual to speak about feelings. There might be a fear, for example that they were judged or not respected as an own value. However, they exist like thoughts do. Sometimes people express so-‐called false feeling. “I feel overstressed.” Or “I feel to get deceived.”

- What needs are connected to my feelings? Needs are peace, harmo-‐ny, water, belonging, to be seen, shelter, love, security, mourning, autonomy, connection, and others. Conflicts often raise when needs are not met. Needs are not strate-‐gies. Strategies are concrete ac-‐tions to meet needs. For example, you can write an article about the current crisis in Europe to meet

the need of freedom (as free speech).

- Making a clear request: Who would I like to take what action to meet my needs? The more the re-‐quest is clearly, concrete and ac-‐complishable the more I have the chance that the other may 'follow' it. Nevertheless, it might be a chal-‐lenge as request do not mean de-‐mand. I could say: “Please come to our next meeting at the right time.” It would sound as a demand if I said: “I expect your punctuali-‐ty.”

The first three steps answer the question, what's alive in me in this moment. Saying a request means answering to the question what would make my life more wonderful. Communication is mutual. People act as speakers and as active listeners either. They try to receive the same information back from the communication partner regardless of how he/she speaks. In this respect, NVC includes learning “... how to translate any message that comes at you into what that person might be feeling and needing and requesting” (Rosenberg, interview). Possibly is 'sounds' simply. But it is an art. NVC is a lifelong learning approach. Inspiration for example about the differences between observation and judgement, feeling and interpretation, need and strategy, request and demand are provided at the website of the Marshall Rosenberg Foundation, www.cnvc.org.



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What about learning barriers in terms of an empathic, non-‐violent communi-cation? Rosenberg mentions the educational system: “...schools were never set up to educate. They were set up to maintain an economic system which requires people to work for extrinsic rewards and not to look at the value of what they're doing.” (Rosenberg, interview) People did not learn to express what's alive in them and what would make their life wonderful. „For political and historical reasons, we’ve not been taught to do this. We have systematically been taught to communicate in ways that prevent this. When people can answer these questions, what’s alive in you, what would make life more wonderful, they don’t make good slaves. They do not make blind workers in systems that oppress people. So in any domination structure, whether it’s a government or a business, you don’t want people knowing how they are and what would make life more wonderful. We have been living under systems that have not wanted us to learn this.” (Rosenberg, interview) NVC has therefore a humanistic concern and it is political at the same time. NVC provides “space” for connection and encountering between people; and it provides space for society's change. “Until we transform the structures, we need to eliminate the power of the structure to transform us.” (Rosenberg, interview) Trying to communicate in a non-‐violent way imply moving between the „two poles of a magnet”, self-‐empathy and empathy. Self-‐empathy as being aware for one's own feelings and needs as well as being able to make requests to meet the needs is often liberating and relieving. It is not the same than purely egoism. It's an attitude and 'way of life' to

feel one's own and to make good experiences by doing this, like 'tasting the life'. It might now be argued that if all people take orientation on self-‐empathy all relationships were automatically more peacefully and enjoyable. This interpretation remembers the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith and his vision of an „invisible hand”: The common welfare is created by the individual profit seeking of each citizen. Possibly Adam Smith's philosophy encompass more than this simplified thought. Moreover, this point of view would neglect another dimension strengthened by Marshall Rosenberg: to serve other people, with a smile, coming from the inner side of us. „No human being has ever done anything for anybody else. Everything we do is to make life as wonderful as we can for our self. What makes life more wonderful than anything else is contributing to the well-‐being of other people. We talk about self-‐fulness. Doing things out of the natural joy that comes when our only motivation is to enrich lives and it's free from any taint of fear of punishment if we don't, hope for reward if we do—including hoping people will like you—guilt, shame, duty, obligation.” (Rosenberg, interview) This perspective of Rosenberg reflects a deep belief in human beings and their capacity to create positive relationships. To stay in the metaphor: It's less the vision of Adam Smith than the provoking and wise words of the biblical Sermon on the Mount which describe the power and dynamics of the NVC. Could it be regarded as a sort of translation into the presence of the 21st century? In that way it may evoke a promise of salvation. It is not one showing happiness as coming from outside. It is one which offers a path; a path to go by everyone.



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Literature A Conversation With Marshall B. Rosenberg, by Michael Mendizza, April 2000 http://www.cnvc.org/what-‐nvc/interviews/michael-‐mendizza/michael-‐mendizza-‐interviews-‐marshall-‐rosenberg (a login / create account is necessary to read the full interview; it's free) Marshall B. Rosenberg,

- Living Nonviolent Communica-‐tion: Practical Tools to Connect and Communicate Skilfully in Every Situation. (288 pages; compilation of prior short works) Sounds True, 2012

- Being Me, Loving You: A Practical Guide to Extraordinary Relation-‐ships, 2005

- Practical Spirituality: The Spir-‐itual Basis of Nonviolent Com-‐munication, 2005

- Speak Peace in a World of Con-‐flict: What You Say Next Will Change Your World, 2005

- The Surprising Purpose of Anger: Beyond Anger Management: Finding the Gift, 2005

- Getting Past the Pain Between Us: Healing and Reconciliation With-‐out Compromise, 2004

- The Heart of Social Change: How to Make a Difference in Your World, 2004

- Raising Children Compassionate-‐ly: Parenting the Nonviolent Communication Way, 2004

- Teaching Children Compassion-‐ately: How Students and Teach-‐ers Can Succeed with Mutual Un-‐derstanding, 2004

- We Can Work It Out: Resolving Conflicts Peacefully and Power-‐fully, 2004

- Life-‐Enriching Education: NVC Helps Schools Improve Perfor-‐mance, Reduce Conflict and En-‐hance Relationships, 2003

- Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, 2003

- A Model for Nonviolent Commu-‐nication, 1983

- Mutual Education: Toward Au-‐tonomy and Interdependence, 1976

Picture: Giraffe sculpture in Marseille, place Lé-‐on Blum; the giraffe baby is a book box in which citizens leave books to others.



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II. Non violent communication and gender issues by Sophia Bickhardt , Project coordinator on behalf of Lila Offensive e.V. / Frauenkreise Berlin

a) Context: Why Non-‐violent Commu-‐nication and Gender?

The field of gender relations is underpinned by perceptions, communication patterns and power relations establishing and/or reproducing gender inequality. It refers to all genders, men, women, queer. More simply spoken and due to the fact that the project was in charge of a women's centre we focus on the relationship between men and women. The participants of the Berlin' project group have brainstormed their ideas and thoughts: It was often considered people have a double standard in perceiving men and women. For example, if a couple gets a child and the woman stays at home, it would be regarded as being normal. If the men took care on the child, he would be well appreciated. More generally, female is often still linked with “emotional” and male with “rational”. But the assumed rationality of men should be deconstructed. It's is often missing because it is still seldom that men are used to talk about their feelings. However, feelings reflect reality as they exist. The double standard in perceiving and judging women also appears if women take over higher positions. They do the same work. At the same time, they were considered as being radical or “boyish”. And not rarely occurs a “cold exclusion” of women to avoid bringing their competencies in practice which

could men show their own limits. This is sometimes justified by the argument that women were not competent enough. On the other hand, female economists are scarcely known. And who has ever heard from female honorary citizens of Berlin? Nevertheless, there are almost no “essential” differences between men and women. The roles of both gender are ascriptions, emerged by our minds, shaped by society over hundreds of years. That's why everyone could make every work if it corresponds with her/his talents and capacities. Persisting in old gender roles creates stress for both gender, in particular for men. Another point refers to needs. The women of the Berlin project group experienced that it seems for men quite obvious to have needs. There were no matter of discourse about it. On the contrary, women would often doubt having needs. This might be a starting point for NVC exercises with the aim to make heart-‐to-‐heart encounter possible. Because NVC is a language of heart. Needs are human, irrespective of gender.



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b) Non-‐violent Communication for Women

The women frequenting women's centers in Berlin do often hope bringing their language alive, to strengthen their self-‐expression, to experience self-‐empowerment and gaining influence, to feel confidence in their own strength and capabilities. It is the (sometimes uncon-‐scious) aim to transform personal possi-‐bilities into reality in a world in which the cultural codes and languages are dominated by men and their networks through hundreds of years. Women wish to express their kind of perceiving reality and wish being accepted in their point of view. Non-‐violent communication can be a door-‐opener for that. Feelings and needs are human and real. They are no subject of thinking them in relative terms for example in favour of social norms or intentions of authorities. Most of the Ber-‐lin' participants experienced during the project that having needs is o.k. A re-‐markable insight. Moreover, the exercis-‐es provided the opportunity to feel it. All practiced self-‐empathy and felt the strength and energy raising from that. This positive “self-‐anchor” led by a deep-‐er connection to one's own is liberating particularly for women who were facing discrimination. NVC allows at the same time to listen with empathy and to “jump” into the world of feelings and needs of the other. It is an intention and method which helps to overcome aliena-‐tion between men and women, to trans-‐form gender related role attitudes, and to change power relations into cooperation accepting differences and creating deep-‐er connection at the same time.

c) Experiences: Exercise I The women of the Berlin' project group met each other monthly. The started with one simple exercise to practise self-‐empathy and empathy/active listening. All participants sit in a cercle. In the mid-‐dle, on the floor lay cards. Each card rep-‐resents a need. Example: security, shel-‐ter, water, belonging, mourning, peace of mind, joy, love, empathy, and others. Each woman has two/three minutes time to tell the others what's in her mind and heart at the moment. The others listen and try to empathise in the other person. Inspired by the cards of needs they at-‐tempt understanding what needs of the speaker may be alive. They offer what needs they hear. The speaker says after-‐wards what offered need touched her at most. This exercise sensitises towards needs. It allows feeling deeper everyone's con-‐cern. It provides opportunity to get con-‐nected to one's own. It strengthens em-‐pathy and being attentive to each other in the whole group. Participants' eyes and ears are widen for feelings and needs of the others. Group feeling raises among all of the group.



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d) Suggested to apply: Exercise II Exercise Title: Step by step to Giraffe language Recommended group size/type:

6-‐15

Recommended time:

1,5 hours

AIMS - Sensitizing towards every day communication between men, women and queer and their “gender relation sub-‐text”

- Train ways out of conflicts and power games - Getting to know the idea and basic methods of NVC

Exercises Objectives:

- Learning the four step model of Marshall Rosenberg by practising

- Practising the intention of empathy - Experiencing self-‐empathy and empathy - Getting aware about the differences between observa-‐

tion-‐judgement, feelings-‐interpretations, needs-‐strategies, requests-‐demands

Resources required:

- Pen, cards, flipchart

Introduction: The exercise encompasses six parts: a) presentation of the four step model, b) building up groups of 3 persons, c) exchange about one communication experience as example for further work; transformation of the chosen dialogue along the four step model, d) presentation to the whole group, e) exchange and reflexion, f) feedback Trainer activity: 1. The trainer presents the four step

model of Marshall Rosenberg (vis-‐ualisation of each step included). She/he explains the differences be-‐tween observation – judgement, feeling – interpretation, need – strategy, request – demand. The trainer also refers to the intention of empathy. The four step model would be like empty and only for-‐mally put in practise if the inten-‐tion were missing.

2. Build up groups of 3 persons; task: exchange about and common choice of a communication experi-‐ence, agreement on roles: who are the dialogue player, who will ob-‐serve?

Participants activity: 1. Active listening the four step model and the

intention of empathy, 2. Get together in groups of 3 persons, 3. Exchange about own communication experi-‐

ences related to gender issue, 4. Choice of a communication experience 5. Agreement on roles: who are the dialogue

player, who is observer? 6. Transforming the example in a dialogue of gi-‐

raffe language by applying the four step model, 7. Presenting the model to the whole group (vol-‐

untarily), 8. Reflexion of the exercise contents, 9. Feedback of the exercise.



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3. Instruct learners to transform the

example in a dialogue along the four step model

4. Trainer focus on time: 15 min. with the option to prolong to 20 min.

5. Exchange in the whole group; some groups present their example (first dialogue then transformed dia-‐logue)

6. Reflexion; focus on the difference between observation–judgement, feelings-‐interpretation, needs-‐strategies, requests-‐demands

Questions: How was the dialogue for both players? What did the ob-‐server noticed? To all: What was your impression? Did any change occur? Was empathy in the air?

7. Feedback of the exercise Precondition: Participants have already made exer-‐

cises referring to observation–judgement, feelings-‐interpretation, needs-‐strategies, requests-‐demands and got sensitised to-‐wards the differences.

Conclusion/summing up: Exercise to get to know the four step model related to gender issues

e) Reference NVC Santa Cruz, NVC, gender and emotions -‐ dialogue from Conflict Improv, 1.12.10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Z1puejhFM



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III. Non violent communication in families. Prepared by Centre social la Garde from France.

a) Context of the methodology ad-‐dressed to family issues

To be a parent is not as simple. To be a parent is actually a real job. To be a parent it's a big adventure. It's beautiful and scary. It's physically and emotionally challenging.

For these reasons, the La Garde Community Centre / Le Centre Social la Garde and especially the family sector considered, discussed and worked topics around:

- Parents - Communication.

The European project has been an oppor-‐tunity to continue a work already initiat-‐ed which allowed to meet people from other countries and to exchange on their own ways to discover tools linked with the non violence communication method from Marshall b. Rosenberg. We already aimed to do so after have we got in touch with an association of family work which runs mediation courses and NVC trainings. Learners as well as staff and trainers from the family sector of our community centre got the opportunity to participate in several workshops. Based on these experiences, a local group of the European project came together aiming to get new skills and by this being able to communicate within families in a new way. We discussed the difficulties which parents face in their families and what motivated them to participate in this training.

They said sentences like these: - “They aren't listening to me. “ - “I screamed but they act like they

don't listening” - “My sun comes back home, en-‐

closes himself in his bedroom, or he sticks on his video game or TV and he doesn't talk to me.”

Marshall B. Rosenberg, American psychiatrist and creator of the Non-‐violent Communication (NVC), tells us: The peaceful communication is a tool which helps us to exchange information on what we need, to give and to give back in the spirit of mutuality; he attracts our attention on ours feelings, needs, and re-‐quests in order to have an enjoyable life. He allows the pursuit of dialogue even if we have different opinions or we face a conflict. The communication process is based on such ethical references and the-‐se can be applied at work, within family and the political institutions. We noticed that this focus con-‐tributes to our personal liberation, it al-‐lows to solve conflicts in a peaceful way and to live relationships more produc-‐tively and smoothly. Getting closed to the NVC can be compared to learn another language; the NVC method is a way of thinking and talking, but also to express the mutual respect between people. It helps each of us to refer to one's own and to the others understanding with the heart and to be listened without abusing or punishing. In trying to apply this way of being in relationship and to care about what we do when we communicate helped us being more carefully with oth-‐ers and ourselves.



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During the group meetings we took time - to train the NVC method by mak-‐

ing exercises which were based on the real situation which partic-‐ipants experienced in their fami-‐lies,

- to prepare our contributions to the transnational meetings as well as the mobilities, and

- to evaluate our work and the ac-‐tivities of the whole project.

b) Usefulness of the NVC method for families

During the project work we trained being respectfully as participants spoke about confidential 'issues'. We agreed to hold regular meetings of our group to work on the project issues and to make NVC sessions facilitated by a trainer. During our meetings without a NVC trainer we made communication ex-‐ercises based on our daily life experienc-‐es. The goal was to go new steps and to try our other ways of behaving, acting and living in personal relationships (in terms of children, husbands, colleagues, etc.). We wished to learn how to produce a more creative dynamics of communica-‐tion and to practice respect to each other. During the NVC trainings, we learned to express our feelings. Before we achieved speaking in a kind that could fit with the “Giraffe language” and avoid the so-‐called “Jackal language” (terms that used Mar-‐shall B. Rosenberg) we needed to learn analyzing our emotions which indeed means to recognize them. NVC does not only imply to focus on the other; it also includes self-‐empathy communicating in a non-‐violent way with one's own.

We worked on several axes: - Knowing who we are, - Self-‐perceptions, - Being conscious to ourselves and

our feelings, - Social interaction.

We aimed to get connected with our emotions enjoying the autonomy and the human responsibility as they show our personality/individuality. We hereby learned that expressing emotions also causes the responsibility of the 'speaker' to gain influence on the session. Another objective of our project group was to en-‐joy a constructive group dynamics when participants share their own feelings. Furthermore, it was a goal to get sensi-‐tised in listening as well as talking about “me” like “I am happy” and not using the “killing you” (“you are ...”). During the NVC meetings, every-‐one were invited to apply the four step model of Marshall Rosenberg:

1. Observing a situation/fact, 2. Expressing one's own feelings, 3. Talking about the needs which are

“behind” the feelings, 4. Saying a request.

The NVC trainer also informed us about our brain capacities and how does it influence our behaviour and the way we act/react. For example, we are not able to understand a negative word like “do not”, “less”, “never” directly. These knowledge helped us to understand why our children or partners can sometimes not achieve to understand our concerns whilst we assume they do not listen. We learned from that to change our vocabu-‐lary, to try saying clear sentences in or-‐der to be listened and perceived.



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Our brain is divided in different sectors: 1. Cortex, the centre of cognitive

thinking, 2. The reptilian brain, the base of in-‐

stincts, 3. The centre of emotions which al-‐

lows the organisation of our be-‐havior,

4. The memory creation center which allows to connect affective-‐ly.

And what means EMOTION? They may be regarded as psychological answers to a situation. E = go outside MOTION=movement EMOTION = movement of going out There are 5 basic emotions:

- fear, - anger, - sadness, - happiness, - shame.

Raised by these emotions are feelings as an “affective complex” around emotions and shaped by emotion. For example, shame is a feeling linked with two emo-‐tions, fear and anger. Emotions are “told” by the body.

c) Positive case studies based on the learner story

Our exercises were simple and have shown how easy communication difficulties may occur. We trained to bet-‐ter learn who we are, to perceive and watch ourselves, to listen to the percep-‐tion of others and compare with our self-‐perception, to enlarge our vocabulary of feelings being able to express our experi-‐ences and what feelings and thoughts

they stimulated, to ask clear questions, to speak easy sentenses ensuring that eve-‐ryone may understand one's own. The questions should

- be addressed to one person pre-‐cisely,

- refer to the present, - should be concrete - be expressed in a positive way, - being reasonable instead of asking

something which could be difficult to understand,

- allow partners to have a choice. Better knowing who we are helps to be connected to each other and to communicate as well as to listen to each other in an empathic way. Empathy is a quality to listen to each other and to be present “here and now” having “open ears” to the feelings and needs of the other. Example Mrs. M. described a situation, which was hurting to her. She could find a “happy end” because she participated in a NVC training. The same to Mrs. C. Her sun, Alain, 16 years old, is a bit rebel-‐lious, he often does not want to respect the rules. Mrs. C. allowed his sun to go to a birthday party and said he should be back at midnight at the latest. But he was not at home at time and Mrs. C. got wor-‐ried. She did not sleep. She tried to join her sun on his cell phone but he was un-‐reachable, his friend neither. She decided to go to the party and to pick her sun up. Alain arrived at home one hour later. He was completely late. The first reaction of Mrs. C. was: “I am very angry, you did not respect the agreement.” Alain: “I know, I am late.” Mrs. C.: “I am very disappointed that you did not respect the deal, you did not respect anything.”



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Alain: “You just have to sleep, let me alone.” He slammed the door. Mrs. C. changed her way to talk to her sun after a period of reflection. She went to the room of her sun and said: “Fortunately, you are save and sound, I am happy to see you. I was to terrified.” Alain realised

that his mother was worried about him and took her in his arms. The “I” refers to a positive feeling; she did not express a judgement anymore. Alain was therefore able to understand and listened to her. Since this experience, he respects the times or warns his mother, if I is late.



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Exercise Theme/Title:

Expression of feelings and needs

Recommended group size/type:

10 persons

Recommended time: 2 hours AIMS Enjoying the process of developing associations Exercises Objectives:

- Enlarging the vocabulary dealing with feelings and needs

- Working on emotions - Finding out our needs - Experiencing the happiness of sharing and being in

group - Appreciating the quality of listening

Resources required - language picture - board on which we write emotions or feelings - board on which we write needs - examples of daily life situations within families

Introduction: Each participant is invited to choose a picture laying on the table. In addition, participants are also invited to choose one or several cards expressing a need referring to one situation. The moment of choice is a moment of silence. Participants share with the others which pic-‐ture(s) and card(s) were selected afterwards. Trainer's activity: Allow the circulation of words. He/she is a mediator and coordinator of the exercise

- giving instructions, - managing the communication, - taking care that all participants

can express themselves. He/she

- should pay attention that the silence will be respected; he/she remembers the idea and framework of the exercise

Participants activity: Every participant talks about a practical ex-‐ample of a real-‐life situation which serves then as a starting point for all participants

Conclusion/summing up: Speaking about concrete facts, participants can express themselves saying what they aim to do when the situation happens. We train to be more aware on the fact that we are all different and that we can react in dif-‐ferent ways even if we faced the same problem. Our needs and emotions can not be the same. But sharing might raise happiness and group-‐feeling either. Listening is sometimes a challenge.



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d) Exercise based on the method addressed to families


Draw your face, draw my face


10 to 12 persons

Recommended time:

Drawing: 15 minutes per 'portrait' Discussion: 40 minutes

Exercises Objectives:

- Working on the perception of our faces - Trying to close the gap between the visions of yourself

and the one of the others - Working on what we say and think about us and how

much focusing on other people influences our self-‐perception and self-‐representation

Resources re-‐quired:

- Sheet of paper, color pencils

Trainer activity: He/she is a mediator and coordina-‐tor of the exercise

- giving instructions, - managing the communi-‐

cation, - taking care that all partic-‐

ipants can express them-‐selves.

Participants Each participant draws his/her own face on a half of a sheet of paper. The sheet shall be bend in two hid-‐ing self-‐portraits. The participants have to find a partner back to back and exchange their draws. Fol-‐lowing this, the drawing contains two portraits of one person.

Conclusion/summing up: When participants unbend the sheet of papers, each one sees two drawings of him-‐self/herself and describe what the drawings show. The group can react and say what he/she is thinking either. What are descriptions? What are judgements? Do they agree with the perceptions? What about their own ones? These exercises allows to share reflexions on our self-‐image and the image that we try to show.



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IV. Non-‐violent communication guidelines about Empathic Communication in Internet Prepared by Fondazione Franceschi Onlus from Italy.

a) Context

The English word Empathy derives from a Greek word empatheia, that means physical affection, passion. This word also corresponds to the German term einfühlung, which refers to the feeling that people experience in front of a artistic work: painting, sculpture, music, literature and so on. The essence of empathy is to communicate among us without conflicts and overcoming differences. Everybody has a different way to view the world, but with empathy it’s possible to comprehend the point of view of the others and to express the ones. Thorough metaphoric language, we can see ourselves reflected in others and they in us, so perceiving a wide variety of feelings, needs and experiences. In this regard, the American Indians tell that each of us should wear the moccasins of the others for at least thirty moons, before to understand their points of view. Since childhood, we used to listen and to tell stories by the persons who lived with us, conveying the events in words and images, often by improvisation or embellishment. Many of our daily experiences and actions have a narrative structure. For this reason, each culture used tales and narratives as a means of entertainment, education and to communicate moral values.

The storytelling is one of the greatest treasures of people’s life: we are all storytellers and therefore we all tell stories to ourselves and to others. The crucial elements of stories and storytelling include plot, characters and narrative point of view. The readers participate to the story identifying with one of the main characters, thorough imagination and fantasy. Using the imagination that comes from heart (as it was called in the middle age by renaissance artists) it could be possible to understand another’s perspective or way to see the world. Many writers and philosophers say that imaginative empathy is based on a sense of increased self-‐awareness. In fact, with fantasy we can imagine being someone else (for example another person, animal or object) and so taking on the role of that. In this way, it’s possible to create new connections together and to have deep resonances among the participants of a group, so facilitating the understanding of needs, values and feelings of all. Hubert J.M. Hermans argues that people are all motivated storytellers, because there is always someone who tells the story to someone else. This dialogical reciprocity between teller and listener makes storytelling a highly dynamic interactional phenomenon.



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b) Uselfulness of the methodology Although it’s so easy to connect with others thorough the World Wide Web (social networks, e-‐mails, digital stuff and so on), nowadays people feel alone than ever before, paradoxically. In addition to this, the time perception about the communication has changed deeply: for example, in the past there was a long waiting before receiving a letter, so it was possible to reflect in one’s mind about the response. During the long intervals of time, the sender wondered if the addressee had really received the message, while the ad-‐dressee was waiting exited for the arrive of the letter. People used to read and to correct a letter for many times before sending it, also trying to understand completely the meaning of phrases and words. This situation began to change with the invention of telegraph before and then with the telephone, because they decreased the distance between the sender and the addressee. But the real revolution comes with the inventions of personal computer and mobile phones, because the sending and the response time become immediate. For example, when we receive one e-‐mail, often we tend to response immediately: we react to the emotions, without thinking too much about the consequences of our actions. The use of computer accelerates our time perception, inducing us to overlap the time of reception and the time of response, so bypassing the full understanding of all meaning shades of the message. Often, we don’t comprehend our needs and feelings or those expressed by the sender, for the reason why we respond too quickly, without reflecting and considering the time required.

The purpose of the exercises we intend to propose to our learners, it refers to the chance of divide the receiving-‐time and the response-‐time, inserting the reflecting-‐time about the empathic communication between sender and addressee. This process of reflection also could apply for other internet settings, such as chat, forum and many social networks. The storytelling is one of the ways to realize this purpose, because it facilitates the development of a common language and social relations between people. Also the participants of our empathic group are able to create an imaginary social world (Caughey, 1984), with shared rules and interactions which help learners to understand the different points of view well. The digital storytelling allows people to share many aspects of their life story. It can be used to improve the ability to take the perspective of others, helping to appreciate the social and cultural diversity. In fact, the written narratives can help to recognize the stereotypes we commonly use towards other people, as well as their negative impact on social interactions. The exercises will make learners think about some aspects of empathy, such as the capacity to understand the emotions, the feelings, the intentions, the mood states and the needs of fictional characters. Moreover, learners will be able to recognize emotions and mental states that are being experienced by another person during the telling of a brief story.



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c) Positive case studies based on the learner story.

The experience about internet communication of one learner. During our first course, one of the learners told the following episode happened during the school days of her child: My family and I are subscribed at the mailing list of the school. This mailing list should work for sending information about school life. But, some days ago, I received a very strange mail: one of the parents has written a message to promote his relative’s political campaign. In fact, the relative put himself in the middle of politician arena. What surprise! You become a candidate and you try to pick up votes just around in the school! I felt hungry and I was offended by this inappropriate behavior. My first thought was to response immediately to complain against the guilty of this stupid mail! Fortunately I stop myself to react too quickly, without thinking… But I don’t want to receive mails like this in the future. So I ask you (referring to the empathic group): how can I response efficaciously, making to understand my negative feelings in a constructive way, without verbal violence and not hurting the other’s sensibility? The group started a brainstorm-‐ing about the better way to response to the original mail: they made some ques-‐tions on feelings, searching to make a connection with the surrounding needs. Then the group helped her to under-‐stand better that she really wanted to communicate and they proposed some possible replies to do trough one mail.

During the discussion, the group under-‐lined the importance to take the right time to response. Just like one learner said: It’s difficult to keep calm and to make the right thing when someone crosses the line. But it’s just in these cases, that we can show we are stronger than our anger! In the next meeting, the learner referred she was able to write a very good reply, expressing herself and her needs in a not violent way. She felt that her mail reflected what she wanted to communi-‐cate and her response was honest and rather funny. I’m relieved cause I was able to express my feelings and the need to be respect-‐ed, making the request in a very peace-‐ful way and it was a great satisfaction for me!

d) Proposition of exercise

During the first course, our learners used to write our impressions and comments about each meeting on the Captain’s Log, a kind of diary which in turn each learner wrote something. Each learner has written at least two times in the Captain’s Log and so creat-‐ing a chain of comments and impres-‐sions which has improved the coopera-‐tion inside the group. The following ex-‐ercise is the enhanced version of this past experience.



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The Empathic Loom (development of a combined story in internet set-‐ting)


8/9 learners

Recommended time:

- 30 minutes during the first session (in which we introduce the exercise)

- Between the meeting and the next one AIMS - To develop a story for sharing a common language

- To make connections through internet - To encourage creativity and empathy among learners - Understanding empathy and emotions thorough written nar-‐

ratives. Exercises Ob-‐jectives:

- To express one's self - The active listening and the understanding of the others - Improving the group’s harmony - The use of imagination to improve communication - Using the creation of stories to develop a collaborative feeling

Resources re-‐quired:

- Internet connection - Mail address - Video camera

Introduction: This exercise allows accepting the others and their differences in culture, in attitudes and in behaviour. Also, we try to create a combined story starting from a common mood state. Be-‐tween the meetings, in turn, each one will add a contribution to the story. At next meeting, the group will discuss the plot, the story, the feelings, the meaning, etc. Trainer activity: Monitoring the learners’ activity To check the consistency with the starting plot and mood Focusing on communication in internet settings

Participants activity: Brainstorming to define the subject of the story To give a personal contribution to the story To balance the different points of view Working together by internet

Conclusion/summing up: Closing up, this exercise allows to construct relationships among learners outside the planned meetings, making a collaborative group climate which internet could keep in the time.



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e) Bibliography: - Alexander, B. (2011). The New Digi-‐

tal Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media. Santa Barbara, Cali-‐fornia: Praeger.

- Bargh J., McKenna K.Y.A & Fitzsi-‐mons G.M. (2002). Can You See the Real Me? Activation and Expression of the “True Self” on the Internet. In Journal of Social Issues, Volume 58, 33-‐48.

- Bell, L.A. (2003). Telling Tales: What stories can teach us about racism. In Race Ethnicity and Education, 6 (1), 3-‐28.

- Caughey, J. (1984). Imaginary Social Worlds. University of Nebraska Press.

- Fairbairn, G.J. (2009). Empathy, Sympathy and the Image of the Oth-‐er. In Journal of Social Justice. Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

- Feng, J., Lazar J. & Preece J. (2007). Empathy and Online interpersonal Trust: a Fragile relationship. In Be-‐haviour and Information Technology, Volume 23, Issue 2.

- Garcia, P. & Rossiter, M. (2010). Digi-‐tal Storytelling as Narrative Peda-‐gogy. In D. Gibson & B. Dodge (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Infor-‐mation Technology & Teacher Educa-‐tion International Conference 2010 (pp. 1091-‐1097). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

- Hammond, C. (2013). Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Per-‐ception. Harper Perennial: Reprint edition.

- Hermans, H.J.M., & Gieser, T. (Eds.) (2012). Handbook of Dialogical Self Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

- Hermans, H.J.M. (2002). The person as a motivated storyteller: Valuation Theory and the Self-‐Confrontation Method. In R.A. Neimeyer, & G.J. Neimeyer (Eds.) Advances in Person-‐al Construct Psychology (pp. 3–38).

- Hillman, J. (1983). Healing Fiction. New York: Station Hill Press.

- http://www.jetpress.org/v19/manney.htm (web site about storytelling and empathy).

- Lowenthal, P.R. & Dunlap, J. (2010). From pixel on a screen to real person in your students’ lives: Establishing social presence using digital story-‐telling. The Internet and Higher Edu-‐cation.

- Luwisch, F.E. (2001). Understanding what goes on in the heart and the mind: learning about diversity and co-‐existence storytelling. In Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 133-‐146.

- Rosenberg, M.B. (1972). Mutual Edu-‐cation. Bernie Straub Publishing Co, Inc. & Special Child Pubblications.

- Rosenberg, M.B. (1998). Nonviolent Communication. Puddle Dancer Press.



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V. Intergenerational Non-‐violent Communication Prepared by Panevėžio rajono Pažagienių mokykla-‐darželis from Lithuania.

a) Context Representatives of at least four generations take active part in school activities and children education nowadays. Each generation has got its own values and needs that influence their manner of communication. It is very important to know the difference of the generation in order to make communication more effective. Each generation consists of approximately a 20 year span (not all demographers and generation researchers agree on the exact start/stop dates). Each generation has a unique set of values, reacts to the generation before them and looks at their genearation as the standrad of comparison. Usually looks at the next generation skeptically: these kids today... The theory suggests the following titles and intervals for each generation:

Lost Generation (1883–1900) Greatest Generation (1901–1924) Silent Generation (1925–1942) Baby Boomer (1943–1960) Generation X (1961–1981) Generation Y (1982–2002) Generation Z (2001–)

Understanding differences between the generations is fundamental in building successful multigenerational living. For each generation there are particular experiences that mold specific preferences, expectations, beliefs and life style. Each generation was reshaped because of their socioeconomic experiences.

b) Usefulness of the methodology Baby Boomer The Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, were brought up in an abundant, healthy post-‐war economy, becoming an egocentric generation. They saw the world revolving around them. Nuclear families were the norm. More than anything, work has been a defining part of both, -‐their self worth and their evaluation of others. Their life style revolves around the fact that they live to work. Balance is a quaint idea but not really a possibility. As such, they see the workday at least 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. This is a significant tension point between them and the newer generations, as they expect others to have the same work ethic and work the same hours. Generation X The generation X, born between 1965 and 1980, was the first generation raised on “to do lists” and grew up with high rate of blended families. They were also brought up in the shadow of the influential boomer generation. They witnessed their parents sacrifice greatly for their companies. As a consequence, they developed behaviors (not values) of independence, resilience and adaptability more strongly than previous generations. In opposition to the hard driving Boomers who live to work, they work to live and view the world with a little cynicism and distrust. The letter "X" originally suggested the ambiguous, misunderstood, discouraged genera-tion. Generation X can be described as growing up with MTV and Pac Man.



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Pressed between two large generations of the Baby Boomers and Generation Y, Generation X is also characterized with having the middle child syndrome -‐ always being ignored and underappre-‐ciated. Generation Y The Y generation, born between 1981 and 2000, has been portrayed as the next big generation, an enormously powerful group that has the sheer numbers to transform every life stage it enters. They were brought up during the ‘empowerment’ years where everyone won and everyone got a medal. Raised by parents who nurtured and structured their lives, they were drawn to their families for safety and security. They were also encouraged to make their own choices and taught to question authority. This group was also raised in a consumer economy, and as such, expects to influence the terms and conditions of their job. As a result, they expect employers to accommodate their ‘consumer’ expectations in this regard. This is the basis for the expecting more style that characterizes this generation. They don’t necessarily see that they should get more, but that an employer should give more to their employees. They were brought up with an ‘empowered’ parenting style and therefore they are not afraid to express it their opinion. Generation Y (as well as X, to a lesser degree) is also the first to grow up with computers and the Internet as a significant part of their lives. Constant experience in the networked world has had a profound impact on their style in approaching problem-‐solving situations. This generation of worker is coming into the workforce with networking, multiprocessing, and global-‐minded

skills that the traditionalists and baby boomers could not have imagined. Generation Z (2001–) Characterised as Indigo children or the future of our tomorrow who are predominantly the children of Generation X. They are exposed to technology very early in their lives and most already have an online identity. They are considered the most stressful generation for their involvement in too many extra-‐curricular activities and with the enormous amount of information that they receive daily. With the rigid schedule of daily activities, they sometime forget to be children.


„Very often parenting occurs following the succesful example of your own parents or in contrary doing completely opposite that you experienced while you were a child and now seems you know better what is the best for your child. There are no recepies written, but those parents who care they have more time than their parents to learn and help their kids grow and develop themselves as the own experience is not enough“, -‐ says Jurgita a mother of Simona and Augustas. The world was a very different place when the Generation X children were young, so they have much different parental pressures than their Baby Boomer parents did. When Baby Boomers were young parents, the pressures on parents were practically non-‐existent. In the 1970s and 1980s, this generation was the first to have both parents working outside of the home, so their children came home to empty homes. Their children played outside



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with the kids in the neighborhood without any parental supervision. Cable television was in its infancy. Life was rather easy. Now, the Generation X parents have completely different pressures. Many Generation X families have two working parents, but they feel guilty about their children coming home to an empty home, so they make time to be there for their children. Their children tend to play inside the home or with parental supervision if they are playing outside. These parents even will arrange scheduled play dates, because everything in their lives is scheduled. Generation X parents have to be vigilant about television, because even the evening news is full of programming that could create nightmares in their children. Life is much more complicated. „Who does a better job is difficult to tell as comparing old school of parenting to contemporary parenting is like comparing apples and peaches, as they both may be parenting, like apples and peaches are both fruits. However the pressures, lifestyles, and schools are totally different.“ – says a young father of twins. Old school parenting was much simpler, as the world was a simpler place than it is now. Many old school parents did a good job with what they had and the many contemporary parents are also doing a good job, especially considering what they have to work with today. One of the biggest challenges for the contemporary parents is technology. Children are much more interested in using technology, from watching television, playing video games, and texting their friends than they are spending time with real people. This means that parents have to take time teach their children how to unplug and get in touch with what is organic.

Gen X Parents and Discipline Another challenge for Generation X is teaching discipline to their children. Many of today’s children do not have the personal discipline to struggle through challenges and many of them lack respect for people in authority. Many Generation Y teens do not have nice things to say about the police, teachers, and even their parents. The parents of the Gen Y teen also are reluctant to punish their children for bad behavior, which makes it difficult for their children to know what behavioral boundaries are appropriate. This also puts more pressure on community organizations to help teach children discipline, but community organization do not have many tools at their fingertips either. On the other hand, Generation X children were still in schools when corporal punishment existed. This meant that parents and teachers could spank children for misbehaving and many children were afraid of people in authority because misbehaving would result pain! Discipline was real and it occurred quickly and without the adults fearing accusations of child abuse. This made it much easier for Baby Boomer parents to discipline their children, because the threat of a spanking was enough to calm a child. This is what grandparents miss a lot when they meet with misbehavior of their grandchildren. However now if a parent even threatened their children with a potential spank, their children could call Child Protective Services.



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Over Scheduling Many people from older genera-‐tions complain that Generation X parents have over scheduled their children. It is true that many children have several ac-‐tivities that attend each week, but for the Gen Y and Z children, that is their form of playing. Since parents can no longer trust that their children will be safe roaming the neighbourhood, their children need to have activities that serve as play. When kids have an athletic team or dance squad to practice with once a week, those kids have guaranteed play time with adult supervision. Status of Creativity The older generations also com-‐plain that today’s children are less crea-‐tive because everything in their lives is scheduled. Generation X children were the last ones who freely used imaginary play, because they did not have heavily scheduled afternoons and evenings. Now, children do not have open play time where they are able to use their imagina-‐tion in the same way. Many teachers also notice the differences between previous generations and the ability to creatively solve problems. Independence and its Lack When Baby Boomers were busy at work and their children came home from school, those children had to figure out how to take care of themselves because no one was around to make meals. Now, today’s children are often picked up at school, because the walk home is poten-‐tially dangerous. This also means that there is usually someone home to help take care of them and prepare meals. This makes today’s children more de-‐pendent than the previous generations, and some might even say, today’s chil-‐

dren are more entitled because they do so little for themselves. In the years that the Generation X children have gone from childhood to parenthood, psychology has changed. Baby Boomers did not worry about how their children would feel when growing up, psychology was not something Boomers even considered. Now, psychol-‐ogy is taught in high schools and colleges, so Gen X parents have the pressure of knowing about human development and behavior to help them raise their chil-‐dren with more success. Mantas, who is a father of two boys is convinced that there is no parenting style that is perfect and most parents use what they learned from their own parents. However as long as children grow up to be useful members of society their parents might consider their job of raising chil-‐dren was done well.



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d) Proposition of exercises Exercise Theme/Title:

Practicing Communication Skills


up to 15

Recommended time: 10-‐20 minutes AIMS To discover what a great part experience plays in our understand-‐

ing the speaker

Exercises Objectives: to recognize an important fact about the communication process: The listener rarely makes the same assumptions as the speaker.

Resources required: Blank sheet of paper for each participant Introduction: We are going to play a game that will show us some important things about communication. Pick up a sheet of paper and hold it in front of you. Now close your eyes; no peeking and absolutely no talking. Simply listen closely to the directions I will give you and follow them. Trainer activity: Giving the following directions while you demonstrate with your sheet of paper: The first thing I want you to do is fold your sheet of paper in half. (Give them time to do this.) Now tear off the upper right-‐hand corner. Fold it in half again and tear off the upper left-‐hand corner of the sheet. Fold it in half again. Tear off the lower right-‐hand corner of the sheet. Now you can open your eyes and see what you have. If I did a good job of communicating, and you did a good job of lis-‐tening, all of our sheets should look the same! (Hold your sheet up for them to see. It is highly unlikely that any of them will match yours.)

Participants activity: Follow the instructions. Talk about the fact why their papers did not match the paper tem-‐plate of the trainer.

Conclusion/summing up: The listener rarely makes the same assumptions as the speaker. This means that when someone is told something, he or she will interpret the message based on personal experiences. Communicating has to be an interactive process so that the speaker and the listener could understand each other. The simple activity would reveal what important to understand that representatives of dif-‐ferent generations usually have a lack of understanding because of different gained experi-‐ence and their values. That is why commands to kids or reproaches to parents don’t work the exact way as we expect.



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e) Bibliography ! http://www.un.org/staffdevelop

ment/pdf/Designing%20Recruitment,%20Selection%20&%20Talent%20Management%20Model%20tailored%20to%20meet%20UN-‐JSPF's%20Business%20Development%20Needs.pdf

! http://www.slideshare.net/profjim/generations-‐and-‐their-‐learning

! http://www.reportersvintage.com/vintage-‐fashion/did-‐you-‐know-‐facts/143-‐today-‐s-‐parenting-‐is-‐different-‐from-‐the-‐old-‐school-‐parenting-‐good-‐or-‐bad.html

e) Appendix



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30




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VI. Non-‐violent communication at workplace Prepared by Fundacja Euro-‐Edukacja from Poland.

a) Context In most up-‐to-‐date theories, interpersonal communication is one of the most influential elements of organizational structure and it's functioning effectiveness. Supportive interpersonal communication in work environment leads to:

- more efficient realisation of tasks,

- facilitates group processes of de-‐cision making,

- make flow of information easier, - improve performance of daily du-‐

ties and activities, - creates positive atmosphere of

team work, - bonds co-‐workers , - helps in conflict management

(Brzezińska, Paszkowska-‐Rogacz, 2009),

- determines an individual's de-‐gree of motivation. (Robbins, 2008).

In contrary, malfunctioning ways of communicating might have devastating effect both on individual and organisation as a whole. Distortions in communication process may reach the level of bulling -‐ series of uncomfortable, primarily interpersonal encounters involving bullies and their targeted victims for over periods of 6 months or more (Cox Dzurec, Kennison, Albataineh,2014). In literature it is associated with anxiety, negative effect, depressive symptoms and psychosomatic problems of victims

(Dehue, Bolman, Völlink, Pouwelse, 2012). Additionally it can lead to employees' lower satisfaction with work, lower motivation and higher absentee from work. From perspective of the whole company this may contribute to decrease in productivity, an increase in labour turnover or customer dissatisfaction (Deery, Walsh, & Guest, 2011; Hoel, Sheehan, Cooper, & Einarsen, 2011).

b) Usefulness of the methodology What stems from it, looking for strategies enabling to decrease or to prevent distortions in a communication process in the work environment is highly beneficial. Rosenberg's Model of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) pro-‐vides concrete steps to create communi-‐cation that is beneficial to both individ-‐uals and organisations. Difficult conver-‐sations, workplace conflict, stress, im-‐proving individual and team productivi-‐ty, giving and receiving feedback are issues that handling might be supported by using NVC (Lasater, 2010). Practi-‐tioners and trainers of this strategy also ensures that following steps of NVC fa-‐cilitates boosting employee perfor-‐mance, creativity, teamwork, transform-‐ing workplace conflict into mutually sat-‐isfying solutions, reducing office stress and absenteeism, helping to address concerns in the moment and initiating difficult conversations with ease without pulling rank or resorting to compromise. Additionally, quality of communication in workplace is highly correlated with



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morale of employees (Miyashiro-‐Collins, 2014) Handling difficult conversations might be facilitated by the NVC during preparing, having and learning from conversation afterwards in process of doing self-‐empathy before and during conversation, setting clear intention of conversation, giving empathy to other side needs. (Laser, Stiles, 2010). As in any other contexts using NVC between co-‐workers, employer and employee, requires:

1. Making clear observations and express them without personal diagnosis, evaluation, judgments, and comparisons e.g. In the last two moths you have three delays in finishing your projects, instead of You are always late with your work.

2. Identify own feelings, without us-‐ing "words of action" e.g. abused, attacked.

3. Realise that feelings are always a consequence of personal needs and values not actions of other co-‐workers, clients etc

4. Express those feeling and needs e.g.: I feel anxious because receiv-‐ing payment from our customer requires to fulfil the task on time.

5. Formulate request for specific ac-‐tion e.g.: Could you do it till the four o'clock?

6. Ask for feedback. e.g.: Just so I know I am being clear, would you be willing to tell me what you are hearing me say right now?

This method not only is accurate in facilitating communication between boss and subordinates or co-‐workers but also might help to formulate empathetic respond for any kind of verbal abuse in workplace without arousing victim's feeling of guilt, shame

or fear. For example it helps understand a sentence: You don't know how to edit this text? You are so pathetic in terms of observations, feelings and needs. NVC might help to respond in the following way: Hearing your words (observation), I suppose that you are angry (emotion) because you wish to have in your team, well educated employees in editing texts? (need that lead to emotional state). Do you want me to become more familiar with this topic? (request). What is more, the potential victim might find easier to express clearly own attitude to bully behaviour by saying etc. "When you raise your voice, and say that I am pathetic (observation), I feel angry (emotion), because I care a lot about showing each other respect in workplace (need/value). I wish you to communicate with me without using such terms (request). Summing up, this is a strong possibility that teaching managers and employees Nonviolent Communication skills could be beneficial for many parts of organizational functioning and might prevent work environment from verbal abuse between co-‐workers.


Tom recently became recruited as a manager in highly prosperous organization. His main role was to facilitate and supervise the work of team responsible for creating new strategy of advertising products. After few meetings with team he felt frustrated and had an impression that his employees are ineffective and uncreative. He couldn't find out why they arrive unprepared even if he asks them to think up new ideas on following meetings Also, he declare that he suffered from many self-‐



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accusative thoughts etc.: I'm too inexperienced to play so important and responsible role in this ream; for sure they don't treat me like a leader. He become aware that ineffectiveness of his team could lead to down grading the profit of the company. Even though, he organized a course of creative thinking for his subordinates the situation didn't change. Fortunately in that time the company hired NVC expert to teach managers from all departments additional communicational skills. During the training without hesitation Tom presented his problem and his method of formulating requests and commissioning tasks. After clues from the NVC trainer to become empathetic with potential feelings and needs of his subordinates, Tom become aware that his requests didn't refer to specific actions what might induced in employees feeling of hesitation and lack of clarity. He realized that those feelings may stem from their need of receiving clear guidelines of how they work has to be done. During NVC course he was equipped with empathic listening skills and trained verbalizing observation, own feeling and needs and formulating clear requests. He was fully capable to put the NVC structure into practice during next meeting with co-‐workers and communicate with them in the following manner: "No one came to our today's meeting with prepared idea of an advertisement. (observation). I suppose that you might felt insecure (feeling) because you need clear instructions in what form this task should be fulfilled (need). I would like to ask you for choosing and write down for next meeting five symbols that associates with our brand positively and frequency of its use in TV is below 1%. (request)

Tom observed increase willingness to cooperate and fulfill assignments in his work team. Additionally he start to think more positively about own managing skills and decided to take advantage from Nonviolent Communication in workplace.



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d) Proposition of exercises


Nonviolent Communication -‐ Resolving conflicts in work environment


6-‐12 participants

Recommended time: 1,5 h. AIMS " Enhance readiness to use structure of Nonviolent Commu-‐

nication in workplace environment " Decrease level of emotional distress during conflict situa-‐

tions in work " Increase easiness of resolving conflicts in workplace " Participants learn how to protect themselves from feeling

of guilt and shame (e.g. during aggressive complains from employer about mistakes done by employee)

" Participants learn how to formulate requests and protect own rights without using demands (e.g. during asking for a rise of salary)

" Participants learn how to avoid formulating self-‐judgments and judging and labelling co-‐workers.

Exercises Objectives: " Threw the process of inventing dialogues connected with different conflict situations in workplace, participants learn to recognize a difference between Violent and Nonviolent Communication and notice a potential consequences of dif-‐ferent forms of communication in work environment

Resources required: " Foolscap papers, pens, black board/flipchart Introduction: Organizations, employers and employees bear financial and psychological costs due to unresolved conflicts. Four steps of Nonviolent Communications helps to express observations about other people behaviour, own feelings and requests, which helps avoiding being defensive or aggressive. Aim of the exercise is to provoke making a comparison between commonly used in business manner of speaking and nonviolent way of communicating. Moreover exercise motivates participants to use Nonviolent Communication steps in their work environment by showing it’s beneficial effects. Trainer activity: 1. Trainer dived participants into three groups.

To each group should be assigned a following task: “taking advantage from your experience try to invent the potential reason for conflict between:

a. (group nr. 1) Employer-‐employee (from employer perspective) e.g em-‐ployee permanently arrives to work late

Participants activity: 1. Each group of participants invent

potential reason for conflict in workplace.

2. From each group, two participants present dialogue between a work-‐er who communicate a problem and a worker who has to respond to it.



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b. (group nr.2) Employer-‐employee (from employee perspective) e.g em-‐ployee finds employer’s instructions unclear, inaccurate)

c. (group nr 3) Coworker-‐ coworker (one employee finds his/her colleague as not enough engaged in team work)

2. Trainer encourage two participants from each group to present “a problematic situation” in form of role playing – dialogue between two sides of potential conflict.

3. After dialogues trainer asks whole group about effectiveness of communication and po-‐tential consequences of failure in resolving presented conflicts (e.g. decrease in employ-‐ee’s motivation to comply with a employer’s request) All ideas are written down on black-‐board/flipchart.

4. Trainer presents steps of Nonviolent Commu-‐nication with examples (e.g. parts of dialogue that might took place in working environ-‐ment):

a. communicating about observations without judgments

b. communicating about emotions c. communicating about needs as a rea-‐

sons for emotions d. formulating concrete requests

5. Trainer stress the relationship between feel-‐ings and needs and difference between formu-‐lating requests and demands

6. Trainer ask each group to create and present a new dialogues between sides of conflict that was presented previously with having the use of structure of Nonviolent Communication and support participants in case of any doubts and questions.

7. Trainer initiates final discussion about partic-‐ipants’ perception of “new” dialogues, poten-‐tial effects of resolving conflicts in that man-‐ner for both sides of conflict and whole work-‐environment.

3. Whole group discuss about effec-‐tiveness of communication and potential consequences of failure in resolving presented conflicts

4. After becoming familiar with structure of Nonviolent Communi-‐cation each group create a new di-‐alogue referring to the conflict sit-‐uation presented previously

5. Group discuss about their percep-‐tion of “new” dialogues, potential effects of resolving conflicts in that manner for both sides of conflict and whole work-‐environment.



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Conclusion/summing up: Exercise ends with final discussion about participants’ feelings, foughts and their perceptions of Nonviolent Communications presented by Trainer and try and tested during role-‐plying. Perceiving it’s positive value in resolving conflicts in a work environment should encourage participant’s to use this method personally and promote it in own company.

e) Bibliography

- Brzezińska E., Paszkowska-‐Rogacz, A. (2009). Człowiek w firmie. Bez obaw i z ochotą. War-‐szawa: Difin,

- Dehue, F., Bolman, C., Völlink, T., & Pouwelse, M. (2012). Coping with Bullying at Work and Health Related Problems. Journal of stress management, 19, 175-‐197.

- Hoel, H., Sheehan, M.J., Cooper, C.L., & Einarsen, S. (2011). Organ-‐izational effects of workplace bul-‐lying. In:. Einarsen, S., Hoel, H., Zapf, D., Cooper, C., L. (Eds.), Bul-‐lying and harassment in the workplace: Developments in the-‐ory, research, and practice. Bosa Roca: CRC Press Inc, 129-‐148.

- Dzurec, L.,C., Kennison, M., Alba-‐taineh, R. (2014).Unacknowledged Threats Proffered “in a Manner of Speak-‐ing”: Recognizing Workplace Bul-‐lying as Shaming. Journal of Nurs-‐ing Scholarship, 46, 281–291

- Robbins, S.,P. (2008). Organiza-‐tional Behaviour. Australia: Pear-‐son

- Lasater, I., Stiles, J. (2010). Words That Work In Business: A Practi-‐cal Guide to Effective Communi-‐cation in the Workplace (Nonvio-‐lent Communication Guides) Dancer Press

- Rosenberg, M., Miyashiro-‐Collins, M. (2007) Integrated Clarity® (IC) -‐ Energizing How We Talk and What We Talk About in Or-‐ganizations, In Holman, P., Devane T. The Change Handbook, USA: Barrett-‐Koehler Publishers

Websites:

- http://wordsthatwork.us/site/ - http://www.nonviolentcommuni

cati-‐on.com/freeresources/article_archive_bus.htm

- http://nonviolentcommunication.net/index.php?option=com_ixxocart&Itemid=101&p=product&id=5&parent=8&vendorid=2

- http://nvc.tribe.net/thread/c942ec64-‐e36b-‐418b-‐a0d7-‐da4584b82774

- http://theconflicttoolbox.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/preparing-‐for-‐difficult-‐conversations-‐at-‐work/

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